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Jordan has opened its first job center inside a refugee camp, unlocking work opportunities across the country for thousands living in the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, the U.N. labor agency said Tuesday.

So far, more than 800 refugees in the Zaatari camp in Jordan, which borders Syria and is home to nearly 80,000 people, have registered for work permits at the job center, the International Labor Organization said.

“Refugee workers now have a clear address to resort to when searching for jobs and applying for work permits, where they can receive all necessary information and benefit from expert support,” Maha Kattaa, ILO response coordinator in Jordan, said in a statement.

The Jordanian government says the country is home to 1.4 million Syrians, of whom more than 660,000 are registered with the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

Allowing refugees to work in host countries relieves pressure on social services, boosts the local economy and gives refugees the financial security to re-establish their lives, said UNHCR, which manages work permits and the flows in and out of the Zaatari camp.

“I am confident that having an increased number of Syrians entering the labor market will positively impact the local economy and bring stability to refugee families,” said Stefano Severe, a UNHCR spokesman in Jordan.

Earlier this month, Jordan became the first Arab country to issue Syrian refugees with a new type of work permit that opens up the growing construction sector.

The center, launched by the Jordanian government, will run job fairs and employment matching services with businesses across the country.

There are also plans to open a second center in a nearby camp in Azraq, ILO said.
…

Argentina’s main labor unions took to the streets of the capital on Tuesday demanding more jobs and protesting center-right President Mauricio Macri’s economic policies.

Tens of thousands of workers gathered in the historic Plaza de Mayo criticizing Macri, who is trying to lower labor costs to attract investment and jump-start an economy that emerged from recession in the second half of last year.

“If some retrograde [in the government] thinks that lowering wages, precarious living conditions and destroying trade unions is going to line up investments … we say that is very wrong,” said Juan Carlos Schmid, a leader of Argentina’s largest umbrella union, the CGT.

Standing on a podium at the protest, he said the CGT would meet in late September to discuss a potential strike.

Macri told Reuters in an interview this month his government was negotiating labor agreements sector by sector rather than trying to pass a comprehensive labor reform like the one approved in neighboring Brazil.

Unions fear more drastic changes could be coming after mid-term legislative elections in October, however, especially after a primary vote on Aug. 13 pointed to strong support for Macri’s coalition.

Macri is trying to open Argentina’s long protected economy and focus on competitive industries like oil and agriculture, but has seen some manufacturing jobs lost in the meantime.

The most recent employment data showed the jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in the first quarter of the year from 7.6 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
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Ford Motor Co. and a Chinese automaker said Tuesday they are looking into setting up a joint venture to develop and manufacture electric cars in China.

 

Ford’s potential venture with Anhui Zotye Automobile Co. adds to the global auto industry’s rising activity in electric vehicles for China, which passed the United States last year as the biggest market for them.

 

Chinese planners who see electrics as a promising industry and a way to clean up smog-choked cities are pushing automakers to speed up development.

 

Ford previously said it plans to offer electric versions of 70 percent of its models in China by 2025.

 

Privately owned Zotye Auto, headquartered in the eastern city of Huangshan, produces its own electric vehicles and said sales in the first seven months of this year rose 56 percent over the same period of 2016 to 16,000.

 

“This presents us with an exciting opportunity to leverage each other’s strengths,” Zotye chairman Jin Zheyong said in a joint statement.

 

Sales of pure-electric and gasoline-electric hybrids in China rose 50 percent last year over 2015 to 336,000 vehicles, or 40 percent of global demand. U.S. sales totaled 159,620.

 

Beijing has supported sales with subsidies and a planned quota system that would require automakers to produce electric cars or buy credits from companies that do.

 

Ford said it expects China’s market for all-electrics and hybrids to grow to annual sales of 6 million by 2025.

 

Volvo Cars announced plans this year to make electric cars in China for global sale starting in 2019. General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG, Nissan Motor Co. and others also have announced plans to make electric vehicles in China.

 

 
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Ford Tuesday became the latest carmaker to launch a car scrappage scheme in Britain, joining the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, after months of procrastination from the government over whether to begin a national program.

The U.S. automaker is offering customers a 2,000 pound ($2,580) discount off a range of Ford models when they trade in vehicles registered before the end of 2009.

BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Vauxhall, the British version of the Opel brand sold on the continent, have all launched similar schemes in recent weeks to incentivize motorists to reduce emissions by replacing their gas-guzzling models with greener cars.

The plans come after Britain delayed in July a decision over whether to introduce a nationwide or targeted vehicle scrappage scheme, with a consultation due to take place later this year, despite worries over emissions levels.

“Ford shares society’s concerns over air quality,” its managing director in Britain Andy Barratt said Tuesday.

“Removing generations of the most polluting vehicles will have the most immediate positive effect on air quality.”

Car sales slowing

Ford, BMW, Vauxhall and Mercedes sell around 1 million cars in Britain, more than a third of all new car registrations.

The scrappage schemes will help support sales at a time when demand for new cars is beginning to slide substantially for the first time in around six years.

In July, new car registrations fell for the fourth consecutive month, hit by a number of factors including uncertainty over Brexit and lack of clarity over future government plans around new levies on diesel models.

Britain’s last government-backed scrappage scheme came in the wake of the financial crisis and ran for nearly a year from mid-2009, helping to support the car sector, which had been hit by nose-diving sales.
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The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing and Northrop Grumman separate contracts to continue work on the replacement of the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Though the award for the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) comes amid rising tensions with North Korea, the Air Force had asked the defense industry last summer for proposals to replace the aging ICBM system and its nuclear cruise missiles as the military moved ahead with a costly modernization of its aging atomic weapons systems.

“The Minuteman III is 45 years old. It is time to upgrade,” Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said in a statement on Monday.

Northrop Grumman was awarded $328 million, and Boeing $349 million over the three-year contract.

A milestone contract

The relatively small award is a milestone that would allow Boeing and Northrop to continue parallel detailed development and prototyping for the Minuteman replacement. The Pentagon’s office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) has said the total could cost the United States $85 billion. The Air Force has estimated $62 billion.

Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop and Boeing were all competing for the contract which is needed to perform the three-year technology maturation and risk reduction (TMRR) phase of Minuteman replacement.

A Lockheed representative said the company was “disappointed” and looked “forward to a debrief about the selection.”

Boeing’s Strategic Deterrence Systems Director, Frank McCall, said in a statement, “Since the first Minuteman launch in 1961, the U.S. Air Force has relied on our technologies for a safe, secure and reliable ICBM force.” Boeing provided the Minuteman III missile for the current ground-based nuclear ICBM system.

Northrop Grumman’s chief Wes Bush said in a statement, “We look forward to the opportunity to provide the nation with a modern strategic deterrent system that is secure, resilient and affordable.”

‘Moving forward’

Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said, “We are moving forward with modernization of the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad.”

Modernization of the U.S. nuclear force was expected to cost more than $350 billion over the next decade. The United States plans to replace its aging systems, including bombs, nuclear bombers, missiles and submarines. Some analysts estimated the cost at $1 trillion over 30 years.

“Our missiles were built in the 1970s. Things just wear out, and it becomes more expensive to maintain them than to replace them,” Wilson said.

 
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is “zero chance” Congress will allow the country to default on its debts by voting to not increase the borrowing limit.

 

McConnell’s comments came Monday during a joint appearance in his home state of Kentucky with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It was one of McConnell’s first public appearances since President Donald Trump publicly criticized him for failing to pass a repeal and replacement of former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

 

McConnell did not mention Trump in his remarks, and he did not take questions from reporters after the event. But in response to a question about where he gets his news, McConnell said he reads a variety of sources, including The New York Times.

 

“My view is most news is not fake,” McConnell said, which appeared to be a subtle rebuke of one of Trump’s favorite phrases. “I try not to fall in love with any particular source.”

 

The government has enough money to pay its bills until Sept. 29. After that, Congress would have to give permission for the government to borrow more money to meet its obligations, including Social Security and interest payments.

McConnell sought to calm a crowd of nervous business leaders by interjecting at the end of Mnuchin’s answer to a question about what would happen if lawmakers did not increase the borrowing limit.

 

“Let me just add, there is zero chance, no chance, we won’t raise the debt ceiling,” McConnell said. “America is not going to default.”

 

Addressing the country’s borrowing limit will be the most pressing issue when lawmakers return to Washington following their August recess. After that, Republicans will likely turn their attention to overhauling the nation’s tax code.

 

McConnell said Congress is unlikely to repeal a pair of Obama-era laws most hated by conservatives. While negotiations about health care are ongoing, McConnell said the path forward is “somewhat murky.” And he said it would be “challenging” to lift the restrictions placed on banks following the 2008 financial crisis, known as “Dodd-Frank.”

 

On tax reform, McConnell said the only thing lawmakers won’t consider eliminating are deductions on mortgage interest and charitable deductions.
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Wisconsin Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca was branded as failing “on all accounts” by a fellow Democrat who was “incredibly frustrated and concerned” with his actions after Barca joined Republicans in voting for a $3 billion tax incentive package for Foxconn Technology Group.

 

Emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Democratic state Rep. Lisa Subeck of Madison spelled out her grievances to Barca on Friday, the day after the Assembly passed the incentive package backed by Republicans designed to attract Foxconn to build a massive display panel factory in the state.

Barca was one of three Democrats to vote for the measure Thursday, with 28 Democrats against. Barca, of Kenosha, and the other Democrats who voted for it represent southeast Wisconsin, near where Foxconn plans to build a factory that could employ thousands. Reps. Cory Mason of Racine and Tod Ohnstad of Kenosha joined Barca and 56 Republicans in voting for the bill; two Republicans joined all other Democrats in opposition.

 

Most Democrats were outspoken in their opposition to the measure, branding it as a corporate welfare giveaway that also puts Wisconsin’s environment in jeopardy because of requirements that would be waived to speed construction of the plant that could open as soon as 2020.

 

Barca tried to walk a line, criticizing the process of quickly acting on the bill and saying that more improvements could be made to protect taxpayers, Wisconsin businesses and the environment. But ultimately he said he supported the incentive package because of the backing it has from people in his district.

 

Subeck, in an email sent to all Assembly Democrats obtained by the AP, accused Barca of failing “on all accounts” to differentiate his views on Foxconn with that of the rest of Democrats who voted against the measure. She was particularly upset with Barca for holding an impromptu news conference in the Assembly parlor, right around the corner from his office, shortly after the evening vote Thursday.

 

“I am also concerned that the message you conveyed,” Subeck wrote. “It seems you were trying to justify your own vote rather than share the caucus perspective consistent with our agreed upon message.”

 

She said that Barca’s public comments “have not been consistent with the majority position of the caucus and have served counter to our interest.”

 

Barca wrote in response that he hadn’t planned to have a news conference but after the Thursday vote “we had one outlet in particular that was very aggressive and several others that wanted to talk.” Barca said his staff asked the reporters to move to the nearby parlor, where he and Assistant Majority Leader Dianne Hesselbein of Middleton and Rep. Mark Spreitzer of Beloit answered questions.

 

Barca did not address her concerns about what he actually said.

 

Barca spokeswoman Olivia Hwang said in an email that it was known Democrats had different opinions on the Foxconn bill and he supports efforts to oppose legislation they believe is wrong for their district or the state.

 

Barca does not plan to testify at a public hearing Tuesday in Racine on the bill, she said. Subeck raised concerns in her email about Barca testifying at the hearing scheduled for near where the plant may locate.
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says new measures will be rolled out this week to combat economic speculation in the crisis-ridden country.

 

In an interview distributed via state-run media Sunday, Maduro said he was working with a “special commission” of the new, pro-government Constituent Assembly to clamp down on price gouging.

 

The commission is “going to announce a set of actions so that the maximum price of the products is respected,” Maduro said, without providing details. He also warned that “very severe justice” would “shake the society.”

​Venezuelans constantly complain of scarcity of food, medicine and personal hygiene products — and of outrageous prices amid soaring inflation.

The currency has shriveled in value, down from eight bolivars to the dollar in 2010 to more than 8,000 bolivars last month, as CNN Money recently pointed out. A single-serve bottle of water can cost about 1,200 bolivars.

 

Maduro previously declared a war on speculation in 2013, according to the Washington Office on Latin America. 

Carlos Larrazabal, president of Fedecamaras, a union representing Venezuela’s business sector, accused the socialist administration of trying to smother private enterprise.

 

“The government has a political agenda. Instead of correcting problems of supply and production,” the Constituent Assembly has “deepened” Venezuela’s crisis, Larrazabal said in an interview Sunday with Caracas television station Televen.

The assembly declared on Friday that it would wrest legislative power from the opposition-led National Assembly, a move denounced by many in Venezuela and beyond. The United States does not recognize the Constituent Assembly as valid.

 

Larrazabal said Venezuela is suffering “the consequences of bad economic policy, with an exchange mechanism that is not transparent, which does not allow raw materials” into the country. He also complained of price controls.

 

The archbishop of Caracas, Jorge Urosa Savino, recently reiterated his call to the Maduro government to ease Venezuelans’ suffering. He said the Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly urged the opposition “to defend the rights of the Venezuelan people.”

This article originated with VOA’s Spanish service.

 
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China’s Great Wall Motor Co Ltd is interested in bidding for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), a company official said on Monday, confirming earlier reports that it is pursuing all or part of the owner of brands including Jeep and truckmaker Ram.

There has been speculation over Chinese interest in FCA since Automotive News reported last week that an unidentified “well-known Chinese automaker” made an offer earlier this month, triggering a jump in FCA’s Milan-listed shares.

“With respect to this case, we currently have an intention to acquire. We are interested in (FCA),” an official at Great Wall Motor’s press relations department, who declined to give his name, told Reuters by telephone. He gave no further details.

FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne is seeking a partner or buyer for the world’s seventh-largest automaker to help it manage rising costs, comply with emissions regulations and develop technology for electric and self-driving cars.

An acquisition by Great Wall Motor would be audacious, and one of China’s highest profile manufacturing deals to date.

Earlier on Monday, two people familiar with the matter said Great Wall Motor had asked for a meeting with FCA, with the aim of making an offer for all or part of the Italian-American auto group. Also on Monday, citing an email from Great Wall Motor President Wang Fengying, Automotive News reported that Great Wall Motor had contacted FCA to express interest specifically in the Jeep brand.

The industry publication cited a Great Wall Motor spokesman confirming interest, but saying the Chinese automaker had not made a formal offer or met with FCA’s board.

“Our strategic goal is to become the world’s largest SUV maker,” Automotive News quoted the spokesman as saying, referring to sport utility vehicles. “Acquiring Jeep, a global SUV brand, would enable us to achieve our goal sooner and better (than on our own).”

FCA shares rose 3.9 percent to 11.12 euros in early Milan trading, outperforming a flat market. Great Wall Motor shares were up almost 3 percent in Shanghai.

FCA was not immediately available to comment on interest in the group. Earlier, officials declined to comment on the earlier Automotive News report focused on Jeep.

“Jeep is the most logical choice since (Great Wall) wants to be the largest SUV maker in the world,” said Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight.

Ram could be an option, but “the Jeep brand is recognized globally. I think Great Wall Motor is eyeing a global strategy, not just the United States,” Zhang added.

A move for FCA or one of its main brands, if successful, would allow Great Wall Motor to accelerate a planned push into the U.S. market, the two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

They said Great Wall Motor had been making plans for some time to enter the U.S. market, mainly by upgrading some of its key products and improving branding.

The company earlier this year officially launched a new “Wei” brand of potentially U.S.-market ready vehicles. Wei is the last name of Great Wall Motor founder and chairman Wei Jianjun.
…

The founder of a Chinese luxury online retailer has been extradited from Indonesia to face charges his company smuggled goods into China by having travelers pretend they were personal belongings, news reports said Monday.

Ji Wenhong of Xiu.com joins a growing number of Chinese fugitives who are being returned from abroad to face charges of corruption or financial misconduct.

Ji faces charges of smuggling goods worth a total of 438 million yuan ($65.5 million) into China while failing to report their true value, the news reports said, citing government officials.

The reports said Ji was accused of arranging for his company to buy designer clothing from Europe and the United States and have it shipped to Hong Kong. They said the company arranged for travelers to carry it to the mainland in their baggage, avoiding import duties.

Ji left China in May 2016 after being charged with smuggling, according to the China Daily newspaper. He was returned Saturday by Indonesian authorities.

In a statement, Xiu.com said some individuals at the company were under investigation but didn’t mention Ji. It said the company was operating normally.
…

The port of Tripoli in northern Lebanon wants the world to know it’s ready for business.

 

British safety managers are training local hires to operate heavy machinery and Chinese technicians are running diagnostics on two new container cranes that tower over the harbor, just 28 kilometers (18 miles) from the Syrian border.

 

After six years of civil war in Syria, markets across the Middle East are anticipating a mammoth reconstruction boom that could stimulate billions of dollars in economic activity. Lebanon, as Syria’s neighbor, is in prime position to capture a share of that windfall and revive its own sluggish economy.

 

Battles still rage in Syria’s north and east, and in pockets around the capital, Damascus, but the survival of President Bashar Assad’s government now appears beyond doubt.

 

That is introducing an element of stability into forecasts not seen since 2011, when the war broke out. The Damascus International Fair, a high-profile annual business event before the war, opened on Thursday evening for the first time since war broke out. The 10-day event kicked off with much fanfare, with participants from 43 countries and hundreds of attendees.

 

The World Bank estimates the cost to rebuild Syria at $200 billion.

 

For Lebanon, that could be just the stimulus it needs — the tiny Mediterranean country’s growth rate has hovered around 1.5 percent since 2013. And though the capital, Beirut, has grown visibly richer over the years, Tripoli and the impoverished north have lagged behind.

“Lebanon is in front of an opportunity that it needs to take very seriously,” said Raya al-Hassan, a former finance minister from northern Lebanon who now directs the Tripoli Special Economic Zone project that’s planned to be built adjacent to the port.

 

Ahmad Tamer, the port manager, estimates Syria’s reconstruction will create a demand for 30 million tons of cargo capacity annually.

 

Syria’s chief ports, Tartous and Latakia, also on the Mediterranean Sea, have a combined capacity of 10 to 15 million tons, he says. He wants Tripoli port to be ready to step in for a portion of the rest.

 

“We could provide up to 5 or 6 or 7 million tons,” he says.

 

The port is nearing the completion of the first phase of an expansion project first drawn up in 2009, then revised with an eye on Syria in 2016. Capital investment has reached around $400 million, according to the port manager.

 

On a map, Tamer pointed to a vacant quadrant where preparations are underway to build silos to hold grain destined for regional markets.

 

Syria’s conflict has decimated its food production, which included an average of 4.1 million tons of wheat annually before the war, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

 

In 2017, it managed to produce just 1.8 million tons.

 

Lebanon’s businessmen and politicians have always maintained close relations with Syrian counterparts. Syria is among Lebanon’s largest trade partners, and arguably its most reliable supplier of cheap labor. Lebanon, in exchange, is the banker to many of Syria’s enterprises and its wealthy elites.

 

These ties give Lebanon — and Tripoli in particular — an edge over competitors vying for the Syrian market.

 

The city’s location is also attracting foreign investment. Tripoli port signed a 25-year lease with the Emirati port operator Gulftainer in 2013, to manage and invest in the terminal.

 

“Our aim was to invest here in anticipation of Syria’s reconstruction,” said Ibrahim Hermes, the CEO of Lebanon’s subsidiary of Gulftainer.

 

Lebanon is now a fixture on itineraries of prospective investors. Hermes said he has seen delegations arriving from Europe, Asia and especially China, to scope out trade opportunities.

Before the war in Syria, goods coming through Lebanon’s ports used to transit as far afield as Iraq — saving ships from having to take the sea journey through the Suez Canal and around the Arabian Peninsula.

There is talk now that Tripoli could even be a terminal in China’s trillion-dollar new “Silk Road” project, carving a trade route from east Asia to Europe.

 

The Chinese firm Qingdao Haixi Heavy-Duty Machinery Co. sold the two 28-story container cranes now at the port. Safety signs inside the structures are posted in English and Mandarin.

 

“Tripoli can be a main transshipment hub for the eastern Mediterranean,” said Ira Hare, a sunburned British manager working for Gulftainer.

 

Lebanon has officially sought “dissociation” from the Syrian war so as not to fuel rancor among political parties split between those aligned with Damascus and those against it.

 

But there is also an air of inevitability about the re-normalization of relations, as Assad looks, for the short-term at least, to stay on in power.

 

Syria’s chief champion in Lebanon, the militant Hezbollah group, which is fighting alongside Assad’s forces, evinces little doubt.

 

“Our national interest is for the border between Lebanon and Syria to be open … because, tomorrow the routes will open to Iraq and to Jordan and we want to be able to transport Lebanese goods,” Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech this week.

 

A Hezbollah minister, Hussein Hajj Hussein, is one of two Cabinet ministers headed to Syria this week in a highly controversial visit, the first since the start of the war. Prime Minister Saad Hariri, an Assad critic, said the visit did not have government backing.

 

Damascus also knows it will be brought back in from the cold.

 

The Damascus International Fair, which promises to attract investors from Russia, China, Iran, and other places, is a telling indicator of the mood in the Syrian capital.

 

Europe and the United States are hesitant to finance the reconstruction projects so long as Assad, a pariah to the West, remains in power. But Russia, China, and Iran, as well as investors in Lebanon and the Middle East, are showing no signs of hesitation.

 

“As soon as there is a political agreement to end the war, we will be among the first countries to play a role in reconstruction,” said al-Hassan, the former finance minister.
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The United States, Canada and Mexico wrapped up their first round of talks on Sunday to revamp the NAFTA trade pact, vowing to keep up a blistering pace of negotiations that some involved in the process said may be too fast to bridge deep differences.

In a joint statement issued at the end of five days of negotiations in Washington, the top trade officials from the three countries said Mexico would host the next round of talks from Sept. 1 to 5.

The talks will move to Canada later in September, then return to the United States in October, with additional rounds planned for later this year, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said.

“While a great deal of effort and negotiation will be required in the coming months, Canada, Mexico and the United States are committed to an accelerated and comprehensive negotiation process that will upgrade our agreement,” the officials said.

One person directly involved in the talks described the schedule as exceedingly fast, given that past trade deals took years to negotiate.

The three countries are trying to complete a full modernization of the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement by early 2018, before Mexico’s national election campaign starts.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scrap NAFTA without major changes to reduce U.S. goods trade deficits with its North American neighbors, describing it as a disaster that cost Americans hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.

The joint statement said the three countries made “detailed conceptual presentations” across the scope of NAFTA issues and began work to negotiate some of the agreement’s texts, although it did not provide details on the topics.

Negotiating teams “agreed to provide additional text, comments or alternate proposals during the next two weeks,” ahead of the Mexico round.

Not All Cards on the Table

The source involved in the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said there had been no drama as the three countries exchanged proposals.

Not all cards were put on the table, the source added, saying that during four four-hour sessions on rules of origin, the United States did not reveal its proposed targets for boosting North American and U.S. content for the automotive sector.

Lighthizer had made clear that strengthening rules of origin was one of his top priorities.

“The instructions that the groups received are clear: Work and work fast,” said a second person participating in the talks.

“This is not a negotiation like others we’ve been in. “We will not sacrifice the substance of a negotiation to meet a schedule,” added the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the talks. Trade experts have consistently said that the schedule is

far too ambitious, given the amount of work and differences on key issues.

“It’s hard to imagine how they can do something very substantive and do it very quickly. It’s almost as if you can have one or the other. You can have it quick, or you can have it meaningful,” said John Masswohl, director of government relations at the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
…

Add next week’s total eclipse of the sun to the list of worker distractions that cost U.S. companies hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity.

American employers will see at least $694 million in missing output for the roughly 20 minutes that outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates workers will take out of their workday on Monday, Aug. 21 to stretch their legs, head outside the office and gaze at the nearly two-and-a-half minute eclipse.

And 20 minutes is a conservative estimate, said Andy Challenger, vice president at the Chicago-based firm. Many people may take even longer to set up their telescopes or special viewing glasses, or simply take off for the day.

“There’s very few people who are not going to walk outside when there’s a celestial wonder happening above their heads to go out and view it,” Challenger said, estimating that 87 million employees will be at work during the eclipse.

To get the overall figure of nearly $700 million, Challenger multiplied that by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest estimate for average hourly wages for all workers 16 and over.

Just as the Earth is a mere speck in the universe, however, Challenger said this is still a small sum.

“Compared to the amount of wages being paid to an employee over a course of a year, it is very small,” Challenger said. “It’s not going to show up in any type of macroeconomic data.”

It also pales when compared with the myriad other distractions in the modern workplace, such as the U.S. college basketball championship known as March Madness, the recent U.S. shopping phenomenon called Cyber Monday and the Monday after the Super Bowl.

During the opening week of March Madness, the firm estimated employers experienced $615 million per hour in lost productivity as people watched games and highlights, set up pool brackets and avidly tracked their standings rather than performed actual work.

The Monday after the Super Bowl, meanwhile, resulted in an estimated $290 million in lost output for every 10 minutes of the workday spent by workers discussing the game or watching game highlights and re-runs of their favorite Super Bowl commercials.

And Cyber Monday on the heels of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday at the start of the annual holiday shopping season resulted in $450 million in lost productivity for every 14 minutes spent shopping, not working.

Events like this are likely to have an outsized effect on smaller companies, Challenger said. When their workers are absent, small firms may not have sufficient coverage from coworkers, especially in the current tight labor market where it is hard to find skilled workers.

“When three or four people are missing from an office of 15, it’s a lot more disruptive,” Challenger said.

EVENT AMOUNT IN LOST PRODUCTIVITY

Total Eclipse:   $694 million for the 20 minutes it takes to go outside and watch the eclipse

Cyber Monday:   $450 million for every 14 minutes spent

shopping

March Madness:   $615 million for each hour spent on March Madness activities

Super Bowl:   $290 million for every 10 minutes lost

discussing the game

Fantasy Football:   $990 million for each hour of work time

spent on Fantasy Football

 

 
…

Brexit minister David Davis called on the European Union on Sunday to relax its position that the two sides must first make progress on a divorce settlement before moving on to discussing future relations.

After a slow start to negotiations to unravel more than 40 years of union, Britain is pressing for talks to move beyond the divorce to offer companies some assurance of what to expect after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

This week, the government will issue five new papers to outline proposals for future ties, including how to resolve any future disputes without “the direct jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ)”, Davis said.

“I firmly believe the early round of the negotiations have already demonstrated that many questions around our withdrawal are inextricably linked to our future relationship,” Davis wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper.

“Both sides need to move swiftly on to discussing our future partnership, and we want that to happen after the European Council in October,” he wrote, saying the clock was ticking.

EU officials have said there must be “sufficient progress” in the first stage of talks on the rights of expatriates, Britain’s border with EU member Ireland and a financial settlement before they can consider a future relationship.

That has frustrated British officials, who say that until there has been discussion of future ties, including a new customs arrangement and some way of resolving any future

disputes, they cannot solve the Irish border issue or financial settlement, two of the more difficult issues in the talks.

“There are financial obligations on both sides that will not be made void by our exit from the EU,” Davis wrote. “We are working to determine what these are – and interrogating the basis for the EU’s position, line by line, as taxpayers would expect us to do.”

He said the Brexit ministry would “advance our thinking further” with the new papers next week.

On the role of the ECJ, Davis said Britain’s proposals would be based on “precedents” which do not involve the “direct jurisdiction” of the court, which is hated by many pro-Brexit ministers in the governing Conservative Party.

EU officials say the court should guarantee the rights of EU citizens living or working in Britain after Brexit.

“Ultimately, the key question here is how we fairly consider and solve disputes for both sides,” Davis wrote.

 
…

Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to manufacture in the United States. Labor and land are expensive. It is why most consumer products sold here come from overseas. But a multinational electric guitar manufacturer still produces one-third of its instruments near where it started decades ago. Arash Arabasadi names that tune from Maryland.
…

Hansaben Rasid knows what it is like to live without a water tap or a toilet of her own, constantly fearful of being evicted by city officials keen on tearing down illegal settlements like hers in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

The fear and lack of amenities are but a memory today, after she became a community leader in the Jadibanagar slum and pushed residents to apply for a program that gave them facilities and a guarantee of no evictions for 10 years.

“We didn’t even have a water tap here — we had to fetch water from the colony near by, and so much time went in just doing that. People kept falling sick because there was just one toilet,” she said.

“Now that we have individual water taps and toilets, we can focus on work and the children’s education. Everyone’s health has improved, and we don’t need to be afraid of getting evicted any day,” she said, seated outside her home.

Jadibanagar, with 108 homes, is one of more than 50 slums in Ahmedabad that have been upgraded by Parivartan — meaning “change” — a program that involves city officials, slum dwellers, a developer and a nonprofit organization.

Every household pays 2,000 rupees ($31) and in return, each home gets a water tap, a toilet, a sewage line and a stormwater drain. The slum gets street lights, paved lanes and regular garbage collection.

Each home also pays 80 rupees as an annual maintenance fee, and the city commits to not evicting residents for 10 years.

Negotiation skills

A crucial part of the program is the involvement of a woman leader who brings residents on board, deals with city officials and oversees the upgrade.

Nonprofit Mahila Housing Trust has trained women residents to be community leaders in a dozen cities in the country, including more than 60 in Ahmedabad.

“Women are responsible for the basic needs of the family, and most also work at home while the husband works outside, so the lack of a water tap or a toilet affects them more,” said Bharati Bhonsale, program manager at Mahila Housing Trust.

“Yet they traditionally have had little influence over policy decisions and local governance. We train them in civic education, build their communication and negotiation skills, and teach them to be leaders of the community,” she said.

About 65 million people live in India’s slums, according to official data, which activists say is a low estimate.

That number is rising quickly as tens of thousands of migrants leave their villages to seek better prospects in urban areas. Many end up in overcrowded slums, lacking even basic facilities and with no claim on the land or their property.

Yet slum dwellers have long opposed efforts to relocate them to distant suburbs, which limits their access to jobs. Instead, they favor upgrading of their slums or redevelopment.

Earlier this month, officials in the eastern state of Odisha said they would give land rights to slum dwellers in small towns and property rights to those in city settlements in a “historic” step that will benefit tens of thousands.

In Gujarat state, as Jadibanagar is on private land, it is not eligible for the city’s redevelopment plan.

“These homes are all illegal, but that doesn’t mean the people cannot live decently,” said Bhonsale.

“With redevelopment, there is demolition and a move, and that can take longer to convince people of, with the men usually making the decision. But with an upgrade, the women make the decision very quickly by themselves,” she said.

Bottom up

Elsewhere, in Delhi’s Savda Ghevra slum resettlement colony where about 30,000 people live, nonprofit Marg taught women residents to demand their legal right to water, sanitation and transport.

A group of women then filed Right to Information petitions, to improve their access to drinking water, buses and sanitation.

“The women bear the brunt of not having these amenities, and are therefore most motivated to do something about the situation,” said Anju Talukdar, director of Marg.

“The leaders are the ones who show up for meetings, are engaged and keen to learn how to use the law to improve their lives,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Contrary to perceptions that slums are run by petty criminals who resist efforts to redevelop or upgrade, women leaders in Jadibanagar and Savda Ghevra are actively engaged in bettering everyone’s lives.

Leaders often emerge from a bottom-up process, with reputations for getting things done — in particular, resisting evictions and securing basic services, according to research by Adam Auerbach at the American University and Tariq Thachil at Vanderbilt University.

“They are themselves ordinary residents, living with their families and facing the same vulnerabilities and risks as their neighbors; they, too, want paved roads, clean drinking water, proper sanitation and schools for their children,” they said.

Women leaders, while still a minority, are “rarely token figures” serving male heads of households, and are “just as active, assertive and locally authoritative as their male counterparts,” they said in an email.

Rasid in Jadibanagar, whose two sons and their families live in homes alongside hers, is certain her leadership helped residents improve their homes and their lives.

“Everyone wants security and nicer homes, and they are willing to pay. Someone just has to get it done,” she said.

“I am illiterate, I cannot read, but I know now how to talk to officials and the developer and tell them what we want, and make sure they deliver,” she said.
…

Like all North Korean adults, Song Un Pyol wears the faces of leader Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather pinned neatly to her left lapel, above her heart. But on her right glitters a diamond-and-gold brooch. 

 

Song is what a success story in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea is supposed to look like. Just after Kim assumed power in late 2011, she started managing the supermarket floor at a state-run department store, which has freezers stocked full of pork and beef and rows of dairy, bakery and canned goods. She watches as customers fill their shopping carts, take their groceries directly to be scanned at the checkout counter and pay with cash or bank debit cards. 

 

Song is part of a paradigm shift within North Korea: Three generations into the Kim family’s ruling dynasty, markets have blossomed and a consumer culture is taking root. From 120 varieties of “May Day Stadium’’ brand ice cream to the widespread use of plastic to pay the bills, it’s a change visibly and irreversibly transforming her nation.

Market forces will out

While Kim has in recent weeks gained attention for his threat to fire missiles near Guam, his trademark two-track policy focuses on the development of both nuclear weapons and the economy. His acceptance of a more consumer-friendly economy is meant to foster economic growth and bring profits into the regime’s coffers. But like his pursuit of nuclear weapons, it’s a risky business. 

 

Facing even more international sanctions and a flood of Chinese imports that has generated a huge trade imbalance, there are good reasons to believe the North Korean economy is in a bubble that could soon burst. Prices for gasoline imports have soared more than 200 percent in less than six months, the AP has found. The price of rice is also believed to be sharply rising, although harder to independently confirm because of the difficulty in visiting local markets.

 

The new round of sanctions announced by the U.N. earlier this month will make it harder for the North to export its goods, cap the number of laborers it can send abroad — an important source of foreign currency for the regime — and limit the growth of joint ventures. North Korea will be hit particularly strongly by a Chinese ban on several key products, including coal, iron ore and seafood.

 

The problem, however, goes deeper than that. 

 

Market forces bring new forms of competition, uncertainty and change that are the antithesis of the centrally controlled, state-run economy of the North Korea of old. Markets are like a genie offering to grant the wish of wealth, but at the potential cost of political instability. 

 

Once the genie has been released from its bottle, it’s very hard to put it back in.

Guns and butter

 

The North Korean consumer landscape has evolved dramatically under Kim Jong Un. 

 

In keeping with his father, whose motto was “Military First,’’ Kim devotes nearly a quarter of North Korea’s estimated $30 billion GDP to defense spending, which is a far higher military burden than any other country in the world. But his new slogan of “Parallel Development’’ — guns and butter, so to speak — reflects an inescapable reality of his era.

 

In the 1990s, North Korea nearly imploded when the Soviet Union and its satellite empire collapsed. Reeling from floods, famine and an overwhelmed bureaucracy, it could no longer afford the public distribution system many North Koreans had depended on for their basic needs. This change sparked a wave of grassroots barter and trade, which has swollen into the burgeoning market economy today. 

Life in rural North Korea is still marked by far more hardship and scarcity than in its urban areas, and is hard even to compare to the showcase capital, Pyongyang. Yet there is, surprisingly, a bustling, almost booming, feeling in many parts of the country. 

Local control and entrepreneurs

Under a five-year plan for the economy Kim Jong Un announced last May, North Korean factories are putting a new priority on making more and better daily-life products. Managers, meanwhile, have more freedom to decide what to make, how much to pay their workers and how to forge profitable partnerships. 

 

Along the roads into virtually every city, street vendors, usually weather-beaten old women, sell fruits, vegetables and other food. In the cities, bazaar-style markets, shops and department stores are full of people. The shelves are lined with dozens of brands of domestically made cigarettes, sugary soft drinks and colorfully packaged chips or canned soups. 

 

In specialty shops, the latest “Pyongyang’‘ model smartphones, probably Chinese-made but rebranded to have a locally made appearance, go for $200. Apps to put on them, like the popular “Boy General’’ role-playing game, are $2 a pop. Pyongyang’s premier brewery, Taedonggang, just added an eighth kind of beer to its product line, which already includes beers dark and light, and even one that is chocolatey. 

 

Despite the ever-tightening sanctions, consumer products are still coming in from around the world. Buying a can of Pokka coffee from Japan is easy, and costs about 80 cents. Purchasing a Mercedes-Benz Viano might require some connections, but it is doable, for a $63,000 sticker price. 

 

Trade, yes; advertising, no

On the country’s bumpy highways, caravans of cram-packed long-distance buses and trucks hauling goods from city to city are common. More products made in Pyongyang are found in rural areas these days, and vice versa. Although the use of U.S. dollars or Chinese yuan remains widespread, more people are using prepaid cards or local bills at the checkout counter, suggesting greater buying power in general and more confidence in the stability of the national currency.

 

Some blatant manifestations of commercialism remain taboo. There are only three billboards in Pyongyang, a city of about 3 million. They advertise the local automaker, Pyonghwa Motors, and are more for the benefit of impressing foreign visitors than selling cars. There are no advertisements on television or in the newspapers. 

 

But stores are under instructions to be more consumer-friendly.

 

“At first, we opened the store from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening,’’ said Song. “But in 2015, our dear respected Marshal Kim Jong Un made sure that we serve from 10 in the morning to 8 in the evening so one can use late night at any given time, as many working people often used the shop during the evening after work.’’

Stores now commonly offer buy-two-get-one-free type sales and discounts on products the management wants to move off the shelves. Posters for new medicines or sports drinks can be seen inside shops and customers can sign up for “loyalty cards’’ to get points toward ever more discounts.

 

“In today’s North Korea there is a growing competition between the domestic companies themselves as they try to attract customers and establish reputable brands,’’ said Michael Spavor, a Canadian entrepreneur who visits the North frequently and is one of the only Westerners to have ever met Kim Jong Un. 

 

Spavor calls it a “brilliant strategy.’’ 

 

But the emphasis on locally produced consumer goods isn’t just because Kim wants to make good on his promise to give his people a higher standard of living. 

 

It’s also an attempt to counter the gravitational pull of China.

The power of China

 

As sanctions advocates rightly point out, cutting off trade with China would be catastrophic for Pyongyang. But North Korean leaders, including Kim Jong Un, have shown a great deal of concern over the flip side of that coin: What might happen to their country if trade continues, or grows larger. 

 

The expansion of trade increases Chinese leverage on the ground and feeds market forces that are hard for Pyongyang to keep under control. China accounts for nearly all of North Korea’s trade and its fuel. While the North has minimal dealings with the rest of the world, it did $2 billion worth of business with China in the first five months of this year alone.

 

During Kim Jong Un’s first three years in power, North Korea’s exports to China of coal, garments, minerals and seafood were all growing. But what North Korea was able to sell to China fell far short of what it needed to buy, particularly because of its need for oil and fuel products. 

 

That imbalance has widened dramatically this year as China cut back on buying from the North. The new U.N. sanctions will further squeeze the North’s main sources of export income.

​Signs of trouble

 

Georgetown University economist William Brown estimates the North is suffering an outflow of $200 million in foreign exchange every month. This is crucial because the more Pyongyang owes Beijing, the less it has to spend on other things. But it still needs essential commodities like food and fuel, which can deepen the problems of both shortages and inflation.

 

Right around April, according to data compiled by the AP, gasoline prices started to soar. Many stations either closed their gates or restricted the amount they would sell each customer. As of late July, the price surge had yet to abate.

 

Few North Koreans have their own cars. But gasoline, virtually all of which comes from China, fuels the transportation of goods and people in the new economy. 

 

Brown said the price of rice was also up nearly 20 percent in July from May and was significantly higher than a year ago. There could be a trickle-down effect, since tractors and even the fertilizer used to grow rice require petroleum products. Fears of a poor harvest in the fall could send prices shooting up.

 

“This may represent the greatest near-term threat to the regime stability,’’ Brown said.

 

North Korea has proven it is nothing if not resilient, often finding a way out of its economic problems. Even so, the longer-term changes to society won’t be easy to address.

 

The goods and trading opportunities spilling across the Chinese border are also spurring the growth of profitable enterprises, which has substantial financial benefits for well-connected individuals and, at least initially, the regime’s elite. For this tier of North Korean society — and for farmers who can profit from their excess produce — the new economy has opened up a way to get money from sometimes under-the-table businesses.

 

Loyalty to the regime and party ties remain an important means of social advancement. But, in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea these days, so is a good sense for how to run a proper side hustle to augment what are often paltry official paychecks.

 

However, the same opportunities have widened the gap between the rich by North Korean standards and the poor. The haves benefit disproportionately from the new economy, while a far larger number of have-nots live mostly outside the Pyongyang bubble of affluence. Ambiguity over what officials will overlook and what they will strictly enforce has also created a gray area that opens the door to corruption and bribery. 

 

Double-edged sword

 

The regime is not blind to what’s happening. It knows the new consumerism can be a destabilizing force. But it also knows it needs the markets.

 

North Korean officials insist markets are a stopgap coping measure for the economy that will be overcome. Kang Chol Min, a researcher with the Economics Institute of the Academy of Social Science, said the regime is trying to produce more, and better, goods to woo consumers away from the markets and back to state-run businesses. 

 

“The number of people relying on the state-run commercial networks is increasing,’’ he said in an interview with AP Television News. 

 

But many outside experts believe state enterprises and farms are too inefficient to provide enough goods and services for the whole nation without the help of markets and private activities. 

 

If they are right, it’s hard to imagine North Korea’s economic future will lie in Kang’s vow to produce more goods locally. Nor is it likely to be model worker Song, the state-sanctioned success story.

 

It might, however, be a Miniso store. 

 

Miniso is decidedly not trying to appeal to the shoppers by filling its shelves with products made in North Korea. It’s an international brand name — found in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney — selling bargain-priced goods such as backpacks and consumer electronics. Its Pyongyang store just opened in April, near two of the capital’s most prestigious universities in a newly built high-rise district appropriately called Ryomyong Gori, the “Avenue of Dawn.’’ 

 

It’s the trendiest shop in town.

 

And it’s a joint venture. With China.
…

Steps away from this week’s NAFTA trade negotiations, business unified in hopes of sending a singular message: do no harm.

Representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico convened behind closed doors at a Washington hotel in an effort to strike a new North American Free Trade Agreement. And not far away, industry representatives from all three nations sat waiting and hoping to influence the talks.

After two days of meetings, lobbyists admitted privately that they remained mostly in the dark, swapping rumors about dates and times of future meetings but unsure what progress was being made in the first round of discussions. The meetings were largely expected to be procedural, with little discussion on substance in the early days.

The decision to renegotiate NAFTA has largely been driven by politics, chiefly U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier this year threatened to withdraw entirely.

Business, on the other hand, has largely praised the agreement and hopes to persuade all three governments to make minimal changes to the pact.

More than $1 trillion in trade

U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade has quadrupled since NAFTA took effect in 1994, surpassing $1 trillion in 2015.

“We’re all in the same boat,” said Flavio Volpe, president of the Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association. “In the end we all serve primarily the U.S. consumer. So if you’re going to raise the cost structure, or if you’re going to change the dynamic flow of goods or people in those three countries, you’re really hurting the cost to market for the U.S. customer.”

The U.S. had an autos and auto parts trade deficit of $74 billion with Mexico last year, without which, there would have been a U.S. trade surplus

The United States had a much smaller $5.6 billion automotive trade deficit with Canada last year, but autos was the still a major component of an $11.8 billion overall U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada last year. But including services trade, the United States ran an overall surplus with Canada.

Volpe’s counterparts from the United States and Mexico were also on hand, with hopes of presenting a united front not to see a disruption to the auto industry.

Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, stopped by the talks hotel to chat with negotiators, answer questions and “glean information” about U.S. negotiating objectives.

However, he said insights into the talks were hard to come by, as negotiating teams had not yet revealed details of their proposals to each other.

“There are a lot of poker-faces around here,” he said.

Lobbyists always nearby

He wasn’t the only American lobbyist floating in and out of the hotel. Some held lunch meetings in the hotel restaurants and then returned to their downtown offices. From mining, to textiles to dairy farmers, various groups held sideline meetings.

About 100 business representatives from Mexican companies waited in a meeting room to see if there were any questions negotiators might have for them. And Canadian industry groups mostly worked on their own.

For the most part, the business groups presented a united front.

Juan Pablo Castanon, president of the Mexican business group Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, said his group has been working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for three years. After the November U.S. elections, they began working to tout the benefits of NAFTA.

“The level of contact and communication is intense and one of collaboration,” Castanon said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobby in Washington that represents companies big and small across the country, confirmed they plan to attend all the sessions, where they expect to hold sideline meetings with other business groups and government officials. The Chamber may also hold sideline events or briefings during future discussions.

Even industry groups who weren’t in agreement with their North American counterparts found other stakeholders to discuss common ground.

The Canadian Dairy Farmers are at odds with their American counterparts, but still found a chance to talk, said the Canadian group’s spokeswoman Isabelle Bouchard.

“To have discussions with counterparts within our own industry and even different industries who are in similar situations than us, it’s important, and we have seen though past trade negotiations how important it is,” Bouchard said.

 
…

Auto industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States are pushing back against the Trump administration’s demand for higher U.S. automotive content in a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement.

At talks underway this week in Washington, automaker and parts groups from all three countries were urging negotiators against tighter rules of origin, said Eduardo Solis, president of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association.

But U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed the industry’s fears that the administration of President Donald Trump was seeking major changes to these rules to try to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico.

“Rules of origin, particularly on autos and auto parts, must require higher NAFTA content and substantial U.S. content. Country of origin should be verified, not ‘deemed,’” Lighthizer said on Wednesday in opening remarks.

Fiat Chrysler, Ford, GM represented

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland both said they were not in favor of specific national rules of origin within NAFTA — a position that the industry agrees with.

“We certainly think a U.S.-specific requirement would greatly complicate the ability of companies, particularly small- and medium-size enterprises, to take advantage of the benefits of NAFTA,” said Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council.

The trade group represents Detroit automakers General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler.

His comments were echoed by Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association.

“Anytime you say this list or a part of this list has to come from one specific country you’re going to hurt all three countries,” he said.

Deficits can’t continue to grow

The United States had an autos and auto parts trade deficits of $74 billion with Mexico and $5.6 billion with Canada, both major components of overall U.S. goods trade deficits with its North American neighbors — deficits that Lighthizer said could no longer continue.

Lighthizer’s mention of tightening verification requirements is a reference to expanding the parts tracing list, which is used to determine whether companies meet the 62.5 percent North American content requirement for autos and 60 percent for components.

Devised in the early 1990s, the tracing list covers almost none of the sophisticated electronics found in today’s cars and trucks, most of which come from Asia. Putting these on the tracing list could force suppliers to source these components from North America or pay tariffs on them.

Software content a new issue

Volpe said any changes to this must also capture the North American system design work and software content for these components that is not currently included.

“A car today probably has 25 to 30 percent advanced electronics, software content in it. In 1994, it had zero or 1 percent,” Volpe said. “Could you address the tracing to help you get to NAFTA compliance level by capturing some of the work that’s being done in Silicon Valley or Waterloo, Canada? Yes.”

John Bozzella CEO of the Association of Global Automakers, which represents international-brand carmakers, said NAFTA has allowed a major expansion of auto exports, with more than 1 million more vehicles built annually in the United States than in 1993.

“Negotiators should be mindful of this success as they work to modernize the agreement,” Bozzella said, whose organization represents international brand carmakers with U.S. plants, including Toyota, Honda and BMW.

 
…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday that Washington wants more trade and investment with Latin America, pushing back against perceptions in the region that the Trump administration has an isolationist agenda.

Speaking during a visit to the Panama Canal at the end of a Latin American tour, Pence said the United States was seeking to keep the spirit of the original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the pact now being renegotiated in Washington.

Pence said he wanted a NAFTA deal that was a “win, win, win” for the United States, Mexico and Canada, taking a more conciliatory tone than U.S. negotiators who have warned the deal needed a major overhaul to favor U.S. workers.

Pence later reiterated the United States’ concerns about the tense political situation in Venezuela, but took a more measured approach than U.S. President Donald Trump.

Last week, Trump said the United States had “many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.”

Pence said on Thursday that Venezuela was becoming a dictatorship and that the United States would not stand by while it was destroyed.

He said he was sure the United States, with its allies in Latin America, would find a peaceful solution to the situation in Venezuela.

Panama’s President Juan Carlos Varela voiced concern over Venezuela and said that Panama would in the coming days announce measures against it, including immigration actions, to pressure Caracas into restoring democratic order.
…

At CareerLink, the state job agency in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, custodial worker and former welder Glenn Hendrickson was looking to change careers. Hendrickson was just beginning his search for a new line of work and he did not yet know what would pique his interest.

But he for sure wasn’t interested in farm work, except as a last resort.

“I’ve had a lot of friends who have had summer jobs, like when they were in high school, picking fruit but I doubt anyone would make a career out of it,” he said.

According to local farm sector employers, most workers are paid well above Pennsylvania’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Crew chiefs and foremen on some orchards earn close to $19 per hour. Yet few native-born Americans are willing to do this work, even if unemployed says Alan Dudley, administrator of the Gettysburg CareerLink office.

“The work is difficult, especially in the fields, and it’s not necessarily unskilled work,” he said. “Orchard owners want skilled people to harvest apples so they get the best return on their crop.”

Adams County’s farms, orchards, and processing plants are where the jobs are. The so-called “fruit belt” of vast peach and apple orchards extends across the region’s rolling green hills, along with the packing and processing companies and other agricultural-related businesses.

Tourism, with the 3 million visitors drawn annually to the historic Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, is the other main economic generator.

Adams County’s $580-million fruit industry depends heavily on immigrant labor, which is why the country may be facing an unintended consequence of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Businesses in the agricultural-based economy are experiencing labor shortages, and orchard owners are bracing for the possibility of not having enough workers for the fall harvest.

Fleeing workforce

Last month, six Hispanic employees of a county fruit-packing company, which does not want to be identified, were picked up by local police and turned over to immigration agents, who sent them to a detention facility. These and other detentions have had a chilling effect on the county’s Hispanic residents, who make up 6.5 percent of the population of some 100,000 people.

Yet because of the immigration crackdown, workers are not showing up or in some instances, have fled. The local plant of Hillandale Farms, a major national egg producer and distributor, was desperately seeking to fill vacant jobs this summer, according to a company official, because much of its Hispanic work force had disappeared.

As the autumn harvest approaches, the demand for labor is accelerating, Dudley says, not just in the orchards but also in the fruit processing and other agriculture-related industries.

“So they’re coming into their busy hiring season right now. For instance, Knouse Foods just last week posted about eight new positions on our job search website.”

‘No roving checkpoints’

Adams County voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election.

At the Latimore Valley fair in June, which attracted several thousand people to watch antique car races, trucking company secretary Kim Sanders expressed strong support for President Trump’s policy of arresting and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.

But, echoing the views of others at the fair who were asked the same question, Sanders wants the law-abiding undocumented immigrants to be able to stay.

“I hate to say it but there are not enough American people to go out and work on a farm, or do planting and pick vegetables like they will,” she said.

Republican Congressman Scott Perry, whose district includes Adams County, has heard the concerns of orchard owners and other businesses in the fruit industry. Perry told VOA his message to them is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has assured him nothing has changed in its enforcement actions.

“There’s not like roving checkpoints,” he said. “They’re targeted enforcement.”

But ICE has changed its policies somewhat. Acting-ICE chief Tom Homan told reporters at the White House last month that “…no populations are off the table. So non-criminals, those who have got a court order from a judge that refuse to leave, we’re looking for.”

Under the last two years of the previous Obama administration, non-criminals were not a priority and were often let go if detained.

Growers such as Kay Hollabaugh are running out of patience. She met last month with Congressman Perry and local lawmakers to express her concerns about the future of the Adams County fruit belt if the immigrant labor force is driven out.

“Those people who are making the laws of our land, eat every day,” she said. “If we could simply stop producing food for a month – OK, no food, no food – I think perhaps that would make some bells go off.”

Ripening fruit

The Trump administration’s immigration policy has galvanized activists in Adams County to press for immigration reform and to lobby local lawmakers to vote against measures that would target immigrant communities.

Jenny Dumont, a Spanish professor at Gettysburg College who leads the immigration lobbying effort for a grassroots group called “Gettysburg Rising, blames the Trump administration’s rhetoric for creating unwarranted fears about the undocumented.

“It’s pretty well documented that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans,” Dumont said. “My sense is that people, if they’ve had contact with immigrants here, that they understand the contributions that they make, they’re able to see them as people not just the label immigrant, the other.”

But Congressman Perry said the border would have to be secured before Americans would agree to any immigration reform measure.

“If you just seal the border without doing some of these other reforms, we’re going to have problems from a business standpoint as well, and I think they get that but again there’s this mistrust,” he said. “They want to see action not words,” the congressman said referring to border security.

As the push and pull over immigration policy plays out, farmers may get some relief as the federal government issues more visas for temporary agricultural workers, mainly from Mexico. The U.S. Labor Department has issued 20 percent more H-2A visas in 2017, compared to last year. Those visas are for seasonal agricultural work, such as harvesting berries, fruit or other crops.

But the visas require require farmers to demonstrate that no Americans will take the jobs they offer. In the meantime, the apple crop is ripening on the trees in Adams County. With harvesting about to begin in less than a month, orchard owners are not sure if enough workers will show up.

Kay Hollabaugh repeated what a top executive of a major food processor told her recently: “’If fruit goes, the Adams County economy falls and we’re out of business.’”
…

Here’s how much hope and expectation has been built into the stock market: Big companies are healthy and making fatter profits than Wall Street expected, yet it’s barely enough to keep the market from falling.

Consider Home Depot, which gave an earnings report on Tuesday that was seemingly fantastic. The retailer made more in profit from May through July than in any other quarter in its history, and its 14 percent rise in earnings per share was stronger than analysts expected. Home Depot at the same time raised its profit forecast for this year and reported higher revenue than Wall Street forecast, all of which should be kibble for investors ravenously looking for growth.

Even still, Home Depot’s stock slid 2.7 percent after the report.

That reaction hasn’t been too far off the norm recently, as companies have lined up to report how much they earned during the spring.

Very solid quarter

Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index are on pace to report one of their strongest quarters in years. Earnings per share were likely up more than 10 percent from a year earlier, better than the 7 percent that analysts had penciled in when the quarter ended, according to FactSet.

Despite those gains, S&P 500 index funds are nearly exactly where they were before the heart of earnings reporting season began in mid-July.

“Equity markets have greeted positive earnings reports largely with indifference,” strategists at BlackRock wrote in a recent report. “Investor sentiment shows more signs of fatigue than euphoria, even as stock markets have repeatedly reached new heights this year.”

Usually, when a company reports better earnings than analysts expected, it sends the stock higher, at least for a day. Since 2006, such companies have typically done 1.14 percentage points better than the S&P 500 the day following a report’s release, according to Goldman Sachs. But through mid-August of this reporting season, the performance edge has been virtually nil at 0.03 percentage point. That’s the lowest level in at least a decade.

When a company has reported better-than-expected earnings but fallen short of forecasts for revenue, its stock has tended to do worse than the rest of the S&P 500, according to BlackRock. And when a company has missed on both measures? Much worse.

Surprising?

At first blush, such a reaction may be surprising. Stock prices can move up and down for many reasons in the short term: whatever the president is tweeting about, what central banks in far-flung corners of the world are doing or the latest change some hedge fund has made to its trading algorithm. But over the long term, stock prices tend to track closely with corporate profits. When companies are making more money, investors are willing to pay more for each of their shares.

This time may be different because stock prices had already climbed so much in anticipation of higher profits ahead. Even when profits were falling early last year, the S&P 500 index was still holding steady or rising.

One of the main ways analysts use to measure whether stocks are expensive is to compare their price to corporate profits. The S&P 500 is now trading at 20.7 times how much its companies have earned over the last 12 months, according to FactSet. That’s more expensive than its median price-earnings ratio of 15.6 over the last decade.

Now that strong profit growth has returned, it may be mere validation for the gains S&P 500 index funds have already made. And if corporate profits continue to rise faster than stock prices, they’ll look less expensive.

With the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, many analysts expect the market’s price-earnings ratio to creep lower from its lofty heights. At the least, many are telling investors to expect the stock market to rise no faster than corporate earnings.

More growth seen

The good news is that Wall Street is expecting profit growth to continue in the second half of this year, though maybe at a slower rate.

Some of the biggest profit gains this year have been coming from companies that do lots of business overseas. That’s because, despite Washington’s push for “America first” policies, companies are seeing some of the strongest growth in markets like Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

In part, it’s because those markets are finally accelerating out of the doldrums they’ve been stuck in for years. The sinking value of the dollar is also helping, because it makes each euro or Mexican peso of sales worth more in dollars than before.

When Ecolab, a company that gets nearly half its revenue from abroad, reported its quarterly results on August 1, it told analysts that global economies in general looked “OK to good” and that it was anticipating a very solid 2017. The company, which provides water, hygiene and other services, reported both earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations for the quarter. Its stock fell 0.2 percent that day.
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Maribel Resendiz and her husband came to the U.S. from Mexico, sold cool drinks to workers in the tomato fields of South Florida and eventually opened a bustling shop in a strip mall offering fruit smoothies and tacos. Now she is preparing for the possibility she’ll have to leave it all behind.

Resendiz, who is not a legal U.S. resident, recently turned over control of the business in Florida City to her daughter, a citizen. The once-proud shop owner is so afraid of deportation these days that on a recent morning she was keeping out of sight of customers while her husband was not there at all.

“I am afraid the police will stop me, call immigration, and they will take me away to Mexico,” Resendiz said while cutting fruit for smoothies.

The couple, who came to the United States in 1992 and have not become legal residents, are among a growing number of business owners with the same status who are scrambling to get their affairs in order amid a crackdown on illegal immigration under President Donald Trump.

As many as 10 percent of the 11 million or so immigrants in the United States without legal residency own businesses in the country by some estimates, and many are selling their enterprises, transferring them to relatives or closing altogether to avoid a total loss if they are abruptly deported.

They include people like Mauro Hernandez, a native of Mexico who operates a small chicken takeout and delivery restaurant along immigrant-heavy Roosevelt Avenue in the borough of Queens in New York City. He is now trying to sell.

No hope left

There is Carmen and Jorge Tume, a couple from Peru, who have scaled back their mobile car wash business in Miami because they are so afraid of getting stopped by police and turned over to immigration.

“We don’t have any hope left,” said Carmen Tume, 50. “Everything we built is coming down.”

Hernandez, whose business was registered in the name of a friend who is a legal resident, said he is selling because he doesn’t want his partner to get stuck with it if he is deported.

“Since Trump won, I have been very nervous,” he said.

It’s impossible to say exactly how many are taking such measures, but Jorge Rivera, a lawyer who advises immigrant clients in California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, Texas and other states, sees a clear trend.

“Everyone is taking precautions,” Rivera said. “They don’t want their business to disappear overnight and be left with nothing.”

Several other business owners interviewed by The Associated Press shared similar stories on condition that their names and identifying details not be disclosed, not wanting to alert immigration authorities.

They included a 40-year-old from Mexico who runs a marketing firm in Los Angeles that he said employs 50 people and has annual revenues of about $5 million. He’s making plans to transfer it to relatives who are citizens and move with his family to Spain.

Those selling often see no choice but to take a loss. Under Trump, detentions of immigrants in the country illegally rose 37 percent over the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2016. The administration says it is focused on those with criminal records, but the number of detainees who do not have a criminal history has more than doubled.

Billions in taxes

The businesses in question range widely from one-person cleaning services to restaurants and other operations that employ dozens of people. While hard figures on this hidden part of the economy don’t exist, the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates immigrants in the country without permission contribute $11.7 billion annually in state, local and federal taxes.

People without legal residency can obtain an individual taxpayer identification number and an employer identification number, enabling them to open bank accounts and operate businesses among other things.

Despite the boon for government coffers, advocates for controlling illegal immigration argue that the costs outweigh any benefits and that U.S. law should be enforced.

“They are trying to keep their ill-gotten gains, and the U.S. government should not allow illegal immigrants to own properties or businesses nor transfer them,” said William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said it’s incumbent on business owners without legal residency to prepare for the worst: “If they want their business to survive, they are going to have to put a plan in place.”

For Resendiz that meant handing over legal and financial control of the juice store in Florida City, which lies at the southernmost edge of Miami sprawl where strip malls fade into farms and nearby Everglades National Park produces a clientele of thirsty tourists. It has been thanks to that business the family gets by without government assistance, she said.

“I don’t receive food stamps or Medicaid. … I pay my taxes,” Resendiz said. “I don’t live off the government and don’t ask them for anything.”

She said she and her husband never tried to become citizens because they didn’t feel it was necessary — until Trump was elected president. She has since applied and is awaiting a response, nervous over the possibility of having to return to a homeland she left 25 years ago and now barely knows.

“My dreams became my reality because I had my own business,” she said. “Now, I have nothing in my name.”
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A rural county in Pennsylvania is facing the consequences of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, as businesses in the agricultural-based economy experience labor shortages. Some orchard owners and local pro-immigrant activists are lobbying state and federal lawmakers to raise awareness of the contributions by immigrants in a county that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in November. Bill Rodgers has this report on what is happening in Adams County, Pennsylvania.
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